SIHR Blog A Last-Minute Rule Change? The 1964 Olympic Bronze Medal Controversy Revisited.

[Theokritos]

February 8, 1964. The final day of the hockey tournament at the Olympic Winter Games in Innsbruck. Defeated 3-8 by Sweden, the players of Czechoslovakia hang their heads in disappointment. The locker room is "silent as a grave". [1] But then a knock on the door comes. To their surprise, the players are told that they should prepare for the medal reception. It takes some convincing to make the team believe they're not subject to a cruel joke. Goaltender Vladimír Dzurilla would later recall the scene:

We came out of the dressing room with embarrassment on our faces. (…) We would definitely have been happier to win the third place directly on the ice without mathematical doubt. [2]​

Meanwhile, the Canadian national team has arrived at the Olympic Stadium, expecting to receive the bronze medals. Instead they learn that a last-minute voting by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) lets them finish fourth, not third. The medals they thought were theirs will go to the Czechoslovaks. Upset, the Canadians leave the stadium. Art Potter, president of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA), declares: Canada was "robbed" of the bronze medal. [3] The accusation that the IIHF made a "last-minute rule change" [4] keeps being echoed to this day. In 2018 Brian Conacher, a member of the 1964 team, still claimed: "We got cheated." [5]

The contentious question was how to break the three-way tie between Sweden, Czechoslovakia and Canada, who had each collected 10 points and were thus tied on points for second to fourth place behind the gold-medal winning Soviet Union (14 points).

The standard IIHF procedure to break ties on points was to consider goals for and goals against. Starting with the 1961 World Championship, however, only goals scored and conceded in games against the top five teams were considered for the purpose of breaking a tie between two teams. Then, at the IIHF Congress in the Swiss village of Montana in August 1963, the By-Laws were changed once more. Article 27 ("System of Classifications") now stated:

In the case of equality between two teams the following procedure will apply: The game played between the two teams concerned will decide. The winner, if any, of such game being the winner of the Championship. [6]​

The next sentence added what to do if considering the head-to-head result failed to break the tie:

Should this game have been a draw then the goals for and against in the games played between the first four placed teams will be considered.​

The lack of clarity that this rule brought was exposed six months later at the 1964 Olympics. On the final day of the tournament, the prospect of a three-way tie – a scenario not mentioned in the IIHF By-Laws – caused confusion among the members of the IIHF Directorate. Not only the Canadians, but also the Soviets, Swedes and Czechoslovaks had assumed that, in the spirit of Article 27, only "the goals for and against in the games between the first four placed teams" would count for the purpose of breaking a three-way tie – which would have given Sweden the silver medals and Canada the bronze medals ahead of Czechoslovakia.

But as IIHF president John Francis "Bunny" Ahearne pointed out, Article 27 provided the "case of equality between two teams" for this procedure to apply. In contrast, the situation at hand was a three-way tie and consequently did not fall under the rule restricting the goal count to games against the other top four teams. Instead, the standard procedure of counting the goals scored and conceded in games against all opponents was to be used – which would have still given Sweden the silver medals, but Czechoslovakia would have received the bronze medals ahead of Canada.

Upon studying Article 27, Rudolf Eklöw, a Swedish member of the IIHF Directorate who had previously supported the Canadian position, changed his mind and came to agree with Ahearne's interpretation. On the other hand, the Canadians, Soviets and – remarkably – the Czechoslovaks kept dissenting. [7]

The discussion dragged on and no consensus was reached. By now, time was pressing heavily. The last game between Sweden and Czechoslovakia was well under way. In order to get a formal resolution before it was too late, Ahearne called an extraordinary meeting of the Directorate. A voting was held. Art Potter (Canada) motioned that only the goals scored in games between the top four teams should be considered for breaking the looming three-way tie. Apart from Potter, the motion was supported by Roman Kiselyov (Soviet Union) and Miroslav Šubrt (Czechoslovakia). Votes against came from Ahearne, Eklöw, Walter Brown (United States), Kurt Hauser (Switzerland), Walter Wasservogel (Austria) and Hans Kübelbeck (Austria). Harry Lindblad (Finland) abstained. Thus, the Canadian motion was defeated 3-6 and the procedure that gave Czechoslovakia the bronze medals was accepted. [8]

Did the vote constitute a "last-minute rule change" by the IIHF Directorate? In reality, the decision determined how an existing rule had to be interpreted. Two circumstances should give everyone pause who claim that the IIHF "changed" the rule and "robbed" Canada:

1. Eklöw, who had first sided with Canada, changed his mind once he (re)read Article 27.
2. At the annual CAHA meeting in Ottawa in May 1964, where Ahearne showed up to defend his position, former CAHA and IIHF president Robert LeBel from Quebec said he "told CAHA officials when they returned from the Winter Games that Ahearne was correct in placing Canada fourth in the Olympic standing." [9]

On the flipside, the support for the Canadian position from the Swedes (initially) and the Soviets as well as the Czechoslovaks (who, honorably, voted for a procedure that would have cost themselves the bronze medals) suggests that all the top nations in hockey felt rather strongly the Canadian interpretation was in accordance with the spirit of the rule. Thus, the 1964 Canadian national team earned a perhaps unique distinction: The opponent they ended up losing the bronze medals to had voted for them to win the bronze medals.

Acknowledgment: Thanks to Birger Nordmark, who provided me with the IIHF minutes from 1963 and 1964.

[1] Dzurilla in his autobiography Svet pred maskou (1980), quoted after hokej.cz
[2] same as [1]
[3] Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, February 10, 1964
[4] same as [3]
[5] Ottawa Citizen, February 14, 2018
[6] Minutes of the Summer Congress of the International Ice Hockey Federation (1963, August 8-14), page 6
[7] Minutes of the 48th Annual Congress of the International Ice Hockey Federation (1964, January 27-February 9), page 11
[8] same as [7]
[9] Windsor Star, May 21, 1964

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[sr edler]

There was another close and/or controversial tourney in Austria at the 1987 Worlds in Vienna. First there was some problem with Miroslav Sikora playing for West Germany despite previously having played for the Polish junior team in the 1970s. This had something to do with the Germans round robin wins against Canada and Finland first being stripped and then reinstated, which helped (the eventual champions) Sweden advance to the final round (I think over Finland).

Then in the final round the Swedes neither beat the Soviets nor the Czechoslovaks (both draws) but pounded Canada into the ground 9-0, in a suspiciously looking manner. Sweden then won gold, on a massive goal differential (from the Canada game), only because the Soviets won a close final game (2-1) over the Czechoslovaks, and then walked out on the ice in these hideous outfits

The Soviets didn't lose a game the whole tourney (7-0-0 round robin, 1-0-2 final round), whereas Sweden lost 3 (to the Soviets, the Czechoslovaks, and Finland) in the round robin. You can say Sweden did a Canada in this tourney and won the right games. Also their late game-tying 2-2 goal against the Soviets in the final round is one of the prettiest clap-clap goals probably in tournament history.